The Madness Within
by Friezaess
Summary: Loki escapes on the way back to Asgard leaving Thor a paranoid mess. Just when the thunder god thinks he's going insane, he makes a heart-wrenching discovery about his brother's whereabouts. Slight ThorxLoki, references to suicide, depression and PTSD.


AN: Wow, this is my first fic since about 2004. I'm surprised I even remembered my account details! This is what The Avengers does to me. *sigh* I'm mostly post stories to tumblr these days, so feel free to follow me for Thorki smut! My username on there is haxative.

The trip home from Midgard was a bumpy ride. The tesseract's erratic power combined with Odin's forbidden black magic caused Thor's body to twist and shudder as he dragged his wayward brother back to Asgard to see justice. He could feel the heat and light pulsing in his skull, his limbs stretched by the velocity as they soared through space. He tried to look back to catch Loki's gaze, but the liesmith's visage was blurred by glaring lights. For a moment, Thor couldn't see him at all.

When he crashed back into the palace's courtyard, the golden-haired lion of Asgard was alone. The cylinder containing the talisman which started the whole mess dangled limply from his hand. He growled and swung Mjolnir into the ground with rage as his father closed the wormhole between their two realms. It should not have been a surprise. The god of lies knew the connections of the world tree well, and despite Odin's best efforts, had likely swung to another of its branches mid-journey. Was it even the real Loki who had been captured, or had it been a decoy?

Thor breathed slowly trying to calm himself down, although his tense muscles belied his pulsating anger.

"What now, Father?" he asked, drained in both body and spirit. His weary eyes met the Allfather's ambivalent gaze.

"I cannot sense his presence in any of the realms. Wherever he's gone, he's shrouded himself," Odin replied. "Even Heimdall will not be able to find him now."

"So are we merely to sit on our hands until he strikes again?" Mjolnir's magic tingled in Thor's hand as he was filled with the urge to both have justice done and try to reason with his little brother.

"I will search for him as best I can, but I fear that until he makes himself known, there is little we can do."

When you are immortal, time is entirely relative. A single day on Midgard was but a heartbeat to those who had an eternity on their hands. A short hunting trip in the mountains could take months. The following victory feast could last for two whole weeks. The mighty Thor himself slept for several days as his body repaired itself from both the battle and the arduous interstellar trip. Each sleep cycle was filled with visions of blood and broken bodies. Some nights he could see himself standing over his brother's corpse with bloody hands. Other times, it was he who had been beaten into an unrecognisable lump of flesh.

When he had fully recovered, Thor sought out his friends to help quell his pent-up rage. He barely acknowledged Sif and the Warriors Three upon meeting with them. Instead, he threw the war goddess a training sword and demanded she face him in a sparring session. With every blow they exchanged, he relived the battle against the Chitauri and his brother.

No.

Not his brother. The crazed killer he had fought against bared no resemblance to the playful trickster he had grown up with. Those once-green eyes he had stared into a thousand times before had become faded and glassy. There was no longer any spirit behind them. All that remained was hatred.

Sif grunted as Thor brought his wooden sword down on her so hard that it splintered. She fell backwards onto her rear as her opponent raised the remnants of his makeshift weapon, ready to strike again. She blocked her face with her arms and braced for the impending blows… but they never came. Volstagg and Hogun wrestled the furious prince to the ground and pulled the sword out of his hands.

"We are not your enemies, " Volstagg grunted as he pinned the prince beneath his massive girth. Thor thrashed about in defiance for a moment before suddenly coming back to reality. Volstagg was right. They were not the enemies. The real enemies were in his mind.

"I… I apologise, my friends," he said as his body relaxed in submission. The warriors watched as he picked himself up and walked away without so much as a parting gesture.

The battle for Midgard may have been fought and won, but the demons lingered still. The passing of time did nothing to stop Thor's nightmares. Each day he would go about his business as best he could, but with each moonrise came the fog of depression. When he was alone in his chambers, he could feel his heart beating like the hooves of a thousand horses. It was something he could not control no matter how many spars or hunts he participated in. It was like his mind was unable to switch off.

Whenever his head touched the pillow, Thor saw Loki hanging off the Rainbow Bridge. That was the moment his brother disappeared. He remembered so vividly those tear-filled eyes looking up at him, begging for some kind of approval. Some kind of validation. The beloved sibling he once knew had died when he had fallen into the abyss. And every night in his sleep, Thor would watch him fall over and over.

One night he awoke in a cold sweat after dreaming of their ill-fated trip back to Asgard. The flashing lights, the ripping force of being flung through space and the sudden lightness of the tesseract's chamber came flooding back to him. He had lost his brother for a second time. The nightmare had been so vivid that he could see his brother's face even when he woke, only for it to fade as his mind returned.

That was the day that the visions started.

Like an abandoned lover, Thor saw his brother everywhere. One day as he walked through the market square, the green and gold colouring of fresh apples in the stalls triggered his memory. His heart skipped a beat when he accidentally made eye contact with a young street urchin whose big green eyes looked up at him tearfully. Thor purchased an oversized bag of apples for the child which instantly perked the boy up. The prince could not recall the last time he had seen green eyes so happy.

Thor wondered for a moment if madness was hereditary before he quickly remembered that there was no blood between him and his not-brother. It was almost a relief. Almost.

The hours wore on and eventually Thor returned to the palace for dinner. His wanderings around the kingdom had become a common sight in his quest to purge himself of traumatic thoughts, and he would return each day at sundown like clockwork. It made the servents' lives a lot easier knowing they could wait a few hours more than usual before preparing the massive meals their prince ate.

Thor ate with his mother, whose cheerful face was betrayed by the stress lines around her tired eyes.

"You must stop wandering around town like a lost child, my son," she said as they commenced eating in the dining hall.

"I know you do not enjoy being trapped indoors, but is there not something more productive you could be doing?"

"_Like looking for my brother_," he thought.

Neither Odin nor Heimdall had caught a trace of the lost prince. After a while, the palace felt as though he had never even resided there. Thor was eager to go behind his father's back and start his own search with his friends… if only his mind could pull itself together.

Even as Thor tucked into the roasted leg of an unfortunate boar, he could see Loki in the nearby drapes that billowed in the wind like his green cape. He could hear his footsteps when the servants' boots clacked against the tiles as they cleared the table. Frigga gazed at her son as he sat in an uncharacteristic silence before excusing himself from the table. She prayed to the Norns that she would not lose another child.

As the coolness of the evening descended on Asgard, Thor prepared himself for yet another night of restless sleep. He changed into a drab brown tunic and washed his face in preparation for bed. As the water splashed over his face and blurred his vision, he could almost imagine seeing Loki's face in the mirror in front of him.

The sting of glass into flesh traveled up his arm as he put his fist through the glass.

He could not stand to be tortured by a memory so unrelentingly. Once again his heart began hammering against his chest, thunder echoing in the sky above. Knowing that it was not going to be an easy night ahead, the prince trudged over to a massive window across from his bed which overlooked the kingdom.

He opened it and could see the lights of little houses glowing below. Parents were tucking their children into bed and telling them stories about long-defeated foes. Warriors were just starting to get into the spirit of things at the inns. Lovers were holding each other as they exchanged their passion.

And Thor had only his thoughts for company.

A chilly wind picked up causing a fern in the window box to flutter. In that image, he could see long raven hair being swept about in the midst of battle. The freezing wind on his face was his brother's cold hands, and the sound it made was all the whisperings and lies he had told.

Thor closed his eyes and leaned into the breeze, adoring the way it touched his cheeks. He had never seen Loki in his Jotun form. He imagined it was not at all like the things they had fought on Jotunheim. Loki was too glamorous for that. Perhaps he had elegant horns that swept back like his helmet. Maybe some intricate swirls that marked his skin indicating royalty. As Thor opened his eyes again, he could almost see the imagined silhouette of his frost giant brother standing next to him in the shadows.

He smiled. There were no horns like he imagined. But how could his imagination show two completely different images at once?

Thor stepped back and Mjolnir immediately flew to his hand. The sky above crackled with energy as the silhouette snickered.

"Always ready to take a swing at your little brother, aren't you?" Came the dark voice. The shadows seemed to move aside as the owner of the voice stepped forward.

"Loki," Thor rasped as his long lost sibling came into view. His eyes found it difficult to focus on the man in front of him, making him seem almost transparent in the low light. Thor wasn't sure if it was due to a spell or from his own eroding sanity.

"Why are you here?"

Loki chuckled but made no move to attack. Indeed, he seemed rooted to the spot.

"Am I no longer welcome in my own home?" He asked coyly. "You were the one who insisted I come back here in the first place. It is unbecoming to withdraw an invitation like that, brother."

The word 'brother' was laced with melodramatic sarcasm.

The pair stared at each other unflinchingly as the icy wind blew around them. In the end, it was Thor who cracked first. He put his hammer down and squinted at the blurry image of his brother. His eyes were an unfamiliar shade of burning red which was in stark contrast to the vibrant blue of his body. The custom-made armour that was so becoming of him had been torn from his arms and chest, perhaps from the rough journey from Midgard. But if that were true, what had he been doing for all this time? By Thor's calculations, it had been at least eight months since they had separated.

"There are a lot of things that you must answer for," he stated.

"Ask and I shall answer," came the reply.

"Where have you been for all this time? Father has been searching the realms for you but to no avail. Is there another race out there who has been feeling your wrath?"

Loki scoffed and turned his gaze to the night sky beyond the window.

"I have traveled across the stars for eight moons trying to find that which I lack," he said, pointing to a small galaxy across the sky. "Do you see that patch of stars over there? We went there once as children with father. You probably don't remember it, but I do. We played in the streams while Odin searched for an immortal flower to take back to mother."

Thor thought back but, as Loki said, he had no memory of the trip. His childhood had been filled with many journeys to all corners of the world tree, and a single event from a thousand years ago was hard to pin down.

"As you say, I find it hard to recollect," he said. "Our childhood ended long ago. Most of my memories from that time are more adventurous than a simple flower-picking expedition."

"Of course," said Loki. "It wouldn't matter much to you, what with all the battles and hunts you went on before you so much as reached puberty. I, on the other hand… I remember everything."

Thor stared at his brother who was fixated on the stars. It was as though he was searching for a particular grain of sand in the beach that was the sky. As they stood in silence, Thor noticed that even though he was sure his vision was not blurry, Loki's body still was.

"Are you projecting yourself into my quarters?" He asked.

Loki turned and walked silently away from the window towards Thor's bed. The mattress made no sound as he sat, nor did it sag.

"It depends what you mean by projecting," he said. "Am I really here? In a way, yes. But perhaps all you see is an illusion brought on by your own madness. Would that not be a fun happenstance, brother? Then we could be insane together."

The trickster was speaking in riddles again. The months-old anger inside of Thor propelled him forward as he pulled his fist back.

"I demand you speak the truth!" He brought his punch down hard on Loki, but his fist went through his brother's transparent body as though it were air. He tried again and again to take out his frustrations with his fists, but Loki only sat there unflinching as Thor exhausted himself.

"Tell me where you are. Where you _really_ are," the angry thunder god bellowed.

"That is something which I cannot do."

"Why not?"

"Because then you'll find me. I can't have that."

Thor glared at his brother, looking him up and down to see if his attire bore any indication of his location. A fur from Nifelheim perhaps, or some foliage specific to a certain world. Instead he found himself staring at the marks on his Jotun form. Some of them were inconsistent. In any other circumstance he would not have thought twice about it, but something caused him to look more closely at the man sitting in front of him. The marks on his chest and arms in particular seemed to be wide and… deep?

That's when he realised that he was not looking at standard Jotun skin patterns but wounds.

"You are hurt," he said, reaching out a hand but stilling it upon remembering he was unable to touch the image of his brother.

"Yes," Loki replied quietly, his eyes focussed on the ground.

" You must tell me where you are so I can summon the healers."

"That will not be necessary."

"But brother-"

"I am not your brother," Loki said, although his tone indicated more frustration than malicious intent. "And I am not here of my own volition."

Thor furrowed his eyebrows.

"Then why?"

Loki stood up from the bed and went to put his hands on the other's shoulders, although they immediately slipped through him like a ghost. He sighed.

"You were a worthy opponent," he said, his very presence bringing a chill to the air. "In fact, you were more than that. You were always better than me, really. It doesn't take a genius to see that. If you want to know what happened on Midgard, well… I thought that maybe if I could triumph in glorious battle, people would look at me the same way they look at you."

Thor tried to look into his brother's eyes but they were fixed somewhere off into the distance. His voice, however… he did not speak with the evil which tainted his words on Midgard. He certainly still had a cockiness about him, but Loki had always been that way.

"I don't claim to understand what you did, nor do I approve of it. But the idea of you lying wounded and alone somewhere does not sit well with me." Thor looked at the wounds on Loki's body. "You must tell me where your physical self is so that I may bring you back and have you healed. We can talk about all this then."

Loki's blue lips turned into a crooked smile.

"You asked me the reason for which I am here," he said, finally meeting his brother's eyes. "Well, perhaps that reason is simple. I wish to bid you farewell."

Thor's face seemed to express more confusion each time Loki opened his mouth.

"Farewell? What… ?"

Loki moved his hand in and out of Thor's chest, amused at how he could move through solid objects with such ease. Thor didn't seem to share in his entertainment.

"This is not a projection," he said, putting his hand down. "Well, not really. This is my essence. My spirit, if you will. Projections are just drones, but what you see before you is a thinking, moving, feeling me."

For once, Thor was able to read in-between the lines of Loki's words. He knew that a soul or spirit could detach from a person's body and move around on its own. But that only happened when that person was dead or dying. It was when their soul left their body and sought a path for the afterlife.

"Are you… a ghost?" Thor asked, his anger quickly dissipating. Loki shrugged.

"Sort of. Not exactly. Well, not yet."

"You must tell me, brother! Tell me what's happened to you so that I might come to your aid!"

Loki looked down at the bone-deep wound across his chest. Although there was little blood on his ghostly form, he knew that his physical body would soon be shutting down. He was surprised when he had first left his body- a Jotun soul was not what he had expected, although he supposed it made sense. You can't hide who you truly are in death, after all.

He had also not expected to pass through the golden halls of the palace he once called home. In the stories he had read as a child, a spirit would leave the body just before death and proceed to Hel or Valhalla. And yet, there he stood with no hell hound or demons to take him on his way.

"I do not want you to tend to me like an overbearing nursemaid," he told Thor. "I want to be left alone. This is my choice."

Thor was panicking. He could see the hurt on his brother's face. Even in this form, he knew when Loki's eyes were showing pain. Those fiery red orbs sparkled like embers. It was the same sparkle he had seen when they had been hanging off the Rainbow Bridge.

"Loki, you cannot mean…" He reached out and traced along the long wound reaching from Loki's collarbone to his upper abdomen. He could see the gleaming muscle and bone underneath. It matched the marks on his forearm. "You did this to yourself, didn't you?"

Loki hesitated for a moment, unsure of how to respond in such a way that would preserve his dignity.

"It must be a blue moon," he said. "You got something right for a change."

Thor's breath caught in his throat. He knew that his brother had passed the point of reason, but this was another matter entirely. It was made all the more painful by the casualness of the confession, which was delivered as though they were discussing what to have for dinner. For the first time since his madness began, Loki was talking to Thor like he used to when they had been close. There wasn't the biting hate he had spewed forth on Midgard. It was just two broken brothers sharing a conversation.

"Why in Odin's name would you do something so foolhardy?" Thor asked, readying himself to spring forth to the repaired Bifrost and seek out his brother's dying body. But where could he start? "Don't you realise that you will not enter Valhalla if you die this way? You'll be bound to Hel's realm until Ragnarok!"

"A fitting end for one such as I," Loki replied. From the moment he struck out against Jotunheim, he knew there would be no glorious paradise awaiting him on the other side. That was the price of destiny. He had tried to play the hero that day only to have his father deny him yet again. It was the moment that the last piece of his heart – and his mind – broke completely.

He could feel his energy growing in his spirit form. It was a sign that his physical body was coming closer to death. Loki suddenly shivered, an unnatural cold burrowing into his skin despite being born of snow himself. He knew there wasn't much time.

The dying god closed the space between him and his brother, leaning in to rest his head on the other's breast. Instead, he went straight past it like a forest mist that could never truly touch the trees. Thor held his hands on what would have been his brother's shoulders, and Loki could almost feel their warmth.

"I could feel the hurt in my bones," he whispered. "You've always been loved and praised. Always been… worthy. I wanted to be like that. To be something other than worthless."

Thor was confused. His brother was arguably the most powerful sorcerer on Asgard, and yet he considered himself to be… worthless? But how?

"In trying to prove myself I failed everyone. But mostly Thor, I failed myself. Or rather, proved to myself that I was always right. I am worthless, and I will never be deserving of love. I couldn't bear it any longer."

The wind blew across Thor's face, biting at his nose. The feeling barely registered as he held his hands over his brother's form which, in its huddled state, seemed so very small.

"Loki, this is not the way things are supposed to end," he said, hoping with all his heart that his words could reach the broken man. "Why can you not believe that you are worthy of love? Do you not see what your absence has done to me?"

It was true- Thor's eyes were sunken like he hadn't slept since the dawn of creation, and his normally immaculate hair was matted and unkempt. His pupils darted about like a scared animal.

"At first I thought it was vengeance that drove me to want to find you, but now I know what I really wanted."

The thunder god tilted his head forward so the pair was nose to nose.

"I wanted my brother back by my side. I love you, Loki. I've loved you all along."

A trembling breath escaped Loki's lips. Even in this form, he could not escape the pain of regret. Of what he and Thor could have had if things had not gone awry.

"I'm sorry Thor," he said as tears began to fall and freeze on his face. "I wish we could've been happy together like we used to be as children. I don't want to leave you."

Thor's gaze intensified and his voice became deadly serious.

"You must tell me where you lie, brother. Tell me so that I might bring you back to my side where you belong."

Loki's lips trembled as though he was about to reveal everything, but no words came. He couldn't. There was no point. Thor's initial compassion would soon fade and he knew things would go back to chaos. Or worse.

Thor held his breath as he waited for a reply. He dared not blink, his eyes pleading with his beloved brother for a response. He stared unflinchingly, his gaze fixed on the other.

Until a single white dot appeared in the corner of his vision.

He looked up to see a sparse amount of tiny snowflakes falling just above Loki's image. His brother didn't seem to notice. This was no illusion- the soft flakes settled on his skin and nestled into the matted strands of his hair. He held out a hand to catch them. They were real.

Thor snapped his head back down to stare at Loki.

"You are on Jotunheim."

"What?"

He held out his palm and revealed a small cluster of melting snowflakes.

"Your frost giant magics are enhanced when you're in Jotunheim, correct? You unwittingly brought the weather with you. And this," he traced a finger along the lines of the native markings on Loki's forehead. "I suspect that this and your tattered clothes indicate you are appearing to me in the same state that your physical body is in. And if you were in Jotunheim for long enough, the skin of your birth would return, yes?"

Loki scowled.

"You are mistaken. By merely touching the Casket of Winters, I would take my birth form. I hardly think your conspiracy theories about my appearance have anything to do with this matter."

"I see," said Thor, a new rush of adrenaline coursing through his veins. "Then I shall have to ride to Jotunheim to determine which one of us is correct."

Loki stepped back and fired a blast of ice magic from his fingertips, which Thor quickly dodged. He went to attack his brother again, but the combined intensity of conjuring magic and losing his life was too much. He crumpled to the floor.

"Come back and fight me, " he wheezed at Thor who was barrelling towards the door. It slammed behind him. All of a sudden, Loki was alone. He stared at the ceiling trying to regain enough energy to stop his brother as the snow continued to fall in the room. If he had titled his head towards the window, he would have soon seen him on horseback galloping towards the newly-repaired Bifrost.

As he lay there defenceless, time ground to a halt. His vision became cloudy and he became uncertain as to whether he was in reality or a hallucination. Faded memories danced behind his eyes like flames in the hearth. The images were so vivid- he could hear the water splashing from the stream he and Thor were playing by. He could smell the sweet aroma of the immortal flower his father had returned with. The grass beneath his feet was soft and warm.

"Come on, Loki!" Came Thor's boyish cry as he beckoned him to run to the top of a rocky hill with him. Loki tried to follow but he struggled to keep up with the young princeling, having trouble scaling the rocks his brother had no problem ascending.

"Come back, Thor!" he cried out, trying to keep up.

The snow that had seemingly come out of nowhere suddenly stopped.

Alone in the stillness, Loki lay on the floor surrounded by sparkling white frost.

"Come back…" he whispered as his ghostly form began to fade.

By the time the magpies chirped to announce the sunrise, all that remained on the floor of Thor's chambers was a puddle of melted snow.

Months passed. In the market square, the stallholders remarked on how long it had been since they had seen the crown prince of Asgard out for a stroll among them. The ladies gossiped about whether he had gone to another realm for a romantic getaway with some wench, while the men supposed he had gone on a hunt to distract him from his obvious depression.

In reality, they need not have looked far for the man in question. Instead of gallivanting around the realms, Thor remained inside the palace away from the gaze of the public.

For the second month in a row, he had confined himself to the darkness of Loki's chambers. He could not bring himself to leave. Stacks of tomes and enchanted books lay gathering dust, untouched since the trickster had fallen into the abyss. Thor dared not touch them.

He could hear his own footsteps echoing off the walls as he paced along the marble floor. Through the arched window that took up the far side of the room, he could see the sun begin to set. Night would arrive soon.

Sighing, Thor plonked down on a chair padded with green velvet near to Loki's bed. He stared at the bed for a long time. At one stage he would have to invite the servants in to clean the dust from the room before it encased everything. But for now, he wanted everything to remain just as it was. Familiar. Comforting.

The rays of the setting sun poured across the room and illuminated his perfect hair like a grand halo. Thor thought back on all that had happened. His brother, despite everything, still held the largest part of his heart. Sometimes it pained him greatly. Other times it filled him with happiness.

When night time at last blanketed the sky, he stared out across the galaxies. The blues and greens of the universe were without a doubt the most beautiful sight in Asgard. One could spend hours simply stargazing. Had Loki been searching for their childhood amongst those stars? Perhaps he had disappeared to try and re-discover his lost innocence along the paths they had visited as boys.

At the beginning of his self-imposed confinement, his mother had come to him with a wooden box. It was decorated with intricate carvings and runes signifying romance. When she opened it, the sweet smell of the ever-blossoming immortal flower had overcome him. Inhaling the scent, his mind was instantly transported back to the day he and his brother had been climbing hills and playing by streams in a faraway galaxy.

He remembered Loki trying to follow him up a treacherous slope and tripping as the rocks underfoot gave way. If Thor hadn't caught him just in time, he could've ended up with a fractured skull.

The image of his brother falling still sent chills down his spine.

"Brother…"

Thor was snapped out of his thoughts by a whisper. He looked towards the bed and breathed out a sigh he didn't know he'd been holding as Loki stirred. He reached out to his slowly awakening sibling.

"I'm here," he said, clasping his hand. "I've been here the whole time. You're safe now, beloved."

Loki's emerald eyes slowly flittered open, squinting at the bright healing magics that covered him like a blanket. His head lulled to the side to gaze upon his gently smiling saviour.

"I am… alive?" He rasped, his throat sore from being out of use for two whole months.

"Yes," came the reply. "I found you curled up in the snow next to the field we battled the frost giants on. There was so much blood. I was afraid you'd be torn asunder by the trip back through the Bifrost, but I had to try."

Loki nodded. He remembered laying down in the snow as the blood began to pour out of his self-inflicted wounds. His mind was confused, but he was soon hit by the recollection of their ghostly conversation.

"But… in your chambers… I don't understand."

"Ah, yes. That was strange."

Loki paused for a moment, thinking back.

"I… I remember lying in the snow. I think I wanted it to end from whence I came. I was… I was bleeding. The knife was by my side. I wanted to leave this reality, but all I could think of was you."

Thor nuzzled the pale hand enclosed in his grasp.

"So your spirit came to me instead of the afterlife."

"Yes…"

"Thank the Norns you survived. I would have been lost without you. It felt like I was missing an extension of myself when you were absent from my life."

Loki's brow furrowed.

"Do you really love me that much?" He asked, his voice cracking.

Thor leaned over and pressed his forehead to Loki's. Their faces were so close that he could feel tears, although he was uncertain who they belonged to.

"I always have."

And with that, they kissed.


End file.
